From petty thief in Multan to terror face in India

21-year-old Iman, when captured from Chowpatty after Wednesday's audacious attack, told interrogators that he had started his career as a petty thief in Lahore.

The involvement of Mohammad Amjad Amir Iman, a Lashker-e-Taiba cadre, in the Mumbai terror attacks has once again brought to fore that terror groups in Pakistan were hiring people with weak economic and social background.

21-year-old Iman, when captured from Chowpatty after the Wednesday’s audacious attack, told interrogators that he had started his career as a petty thief in Lahore, where he was staying with his brother after dropping out from school in 2000. Thereafter, Iman shuttled between his brother’s home and his parents’ house till 2005.

He had a fight with his family members and started working as a daily wage earner but later shifted to a small-time criminal gang during which he and one of his friends came across some Jamaat-ul-Dawa members while purchasing arms from a market in Rawalpindi.

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After deliberating among themselves, Iman claimed that both of them decided to join the group because the jihad training they would receive would further their future life in crime.

During training, Iman found many youths belonging to poor families were undergoing arms training at the Lashkar camps. They had been promised greener pastures besides paying hefty sums to their poor parents, he said.

In the training programme, he was shown films on India’s alleged atrocities in Kashmir, and fiery lectures by preachers, including Lashkar chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed’s talks, which led him to believe the Lashkar’s cause was worth giving his life.